How is iMessage better than GTalk on Android (except for the end to end encryption)? GTalk BTW. is a slighlty modified XMPP. It is not even incompatible with regular XMPP clients. It seems to have some additional features to save power by not sending presence updates when its not necessary.
AFAICT Apple did not revolutionize Instant Messaging with iMessage.
It's a seamless experience. Apple doesn't typically innovate on the actual technical software implementation. iMessage at a basic level is very simple. It's the integration in the platform. It's the fact that I do not need to know someone's email address to talk to them on gtalk. Also, what if you don't have a gmail address? Many people do not.
I type a phone number in, begin sending a message, and that seamless/transparent handshake occurs in the background where the device I am about to message tells me it's an iOS device supporting iMessage. I don't need to change the way I use my device.
You don't need to use Google Talk or have a gmail address to use XMPP. It's just another implementation of an existing standard.
I don't think that I need handholding from a protocol to the extent that it saves me from putting their chat address in my address book. If I don't know it, I can text them and ask:)
I don't ask their home number to automatically give me their work number.
It seems all that iMessage really does is enable users to discover connectivity through an alternative means and enable communication through that means. There's no reason you couldn't use the same mechanism to discover a JID/XMPP ID.
Well said. Just like facetime vs video chatting apps. Facetime is a natural extension to the phone functionality, something everybody is familiar with and using on a daily basis already.
thats only because its the default app that apple uses third party developers test to see if users are interested, the creates their own version and makes it the default on their phones.
I am not super familiar with this, but I don't think you can use GTalk to send SMS to a regular phone number can you? With iMessage it's the same app as regular SMS on the iPhone, and it uses iMessage instead of SMS if both sides have it, otherwise it falls back to regular SMS, it's a seamless integration that many people aren't even aware of.
with google voice you can push it to sms, email or gvoice service accessible from phone or browser, and also falls back to sms if not using gvoice. With that being said I hope Google does unify gtalk and gvoice for a better experience between chat/sms/email
AFAICT Apple did not revolutionize Instant Messaging with iMessage.